My mouth was completely parched. I was far too tired and chafed at that point in the day to want to get up from my reclined vantage point in the construction of the world’s greatest sandcastle with my nephews. The afternoon sun was shaded from my eyes thanks to my camouflage jungle hat and the scent of my third application of sunscreen was also most certainly causing some mild hallucinations when I first saw the glimmer across the water’s edge. I at first dismissed the thought of getting up, thinking it was some random ray of sunshine reflecting off the surface water at just the precise angle. Squinting through my sand- and salt-encrusted sunglasses, I recognized that familiar bob and weave of the glassware – it was a bottle. As I approached the weathered object in its solo interpretive dance, there was the all but now cliche image of a glass bottle with cork on its top and what clearly looked like a rolled up piece of paper inside. 

I picked up this aquatic antique, andged to pry the top off with ease but struggled to reach this ultra rare “scroll”. My digitus secundus manus and digitus med’ius (index and middle fingers) were simply too large and lacked the dexterity to navigate such a delicate extraction. Without wasting any time, I knew I had to recruit my youngest nephew John Paul into this mission. 

Johnny is all boy – while he’s the most rugged four year old ever assembled, he has a curious eye for assisting in such precise maneuvers. With the ease of an otolaryngologist removing a foreign object from deep in an ear canal, Johnny grasped the tightly curled yellowed paper, shrugged his sunburnt shoulders, handed me the insubstantial sheet, and went back to erecting his golden sandy stronghold. With no premonition of what I could possibly read, I unfurled this single paged treasure. 

The page was well worn and barely interpreted the 187 on the top left corner of the page. I could make out some of the words near the middle of the page that read, “All right. Listen to me a minute now….I may not word this as memorable as I’d like to, but I’ll write you a letter about it in a day or two. Then you can get it all straight.” The edges of the page were tattered and bleached from the sun. Nearly all of the remaining words and letters on this salt-aired scrap were obscured. 

I wondered for about seventeen seconds what was the intent of the hopeless romantic who had launched this into the Atlantic. I didn’t want to waste any more time contemplating its origins or the proclivities of its previous owner – the spirits moved me to just turn the page over. 

My eyes could barely make out 188 on the top left of this page and the word “Rye” near the middle. Near the center of this side of this ancient seafaring artifact, I deciphered what appeared to be another quote, “Here’s what he said: ‘The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.'” 

What had begun as a late afternoon adventure into the finer details of fabricating a beach fare foundation and fortress, led to a walk back into time and reintroduction to Pencey Prep’s Mr. Holden Caulfield. I recollected one such part from The Catcher in the Rye where Holden determines “certain things, they should stay the way they are.” Feeling somewhat emboldened by Holden, I looked around me, tightly rolled the page back into its water-resistant accommodation, secured the cork and launched the bottle back into the ocean. I watched that bottle dance between the moving crests of the waves until it disappeared. I stood for a moment on the edge of some remnant of a rip current and then turned back to continue to help Johnny and all these little kids he had now enlisted as subcontractors for his shaping of his seaside fortress.

The blare of the commuter train horn on its Saturday schedule precisely every one hour and forty nine minutes was the only major event in our quiescent little hamlet that humdrum morning. Beyond the typical procrastinating of household chores on my day off, I was left alone and prosaic while the rest of my family was scurrying about to a schedule that included stops at a doctor’s appointment, field hockey practice and the mall. It wasn’t the type of start to the day to begin playing some sort of a culinary adventure like a chef de cuisine like my friend Jared in my own kitchen. I had better opt for a visit to the deli or cafe down in the center of our bucolic town to seek out some sustenance.

I passed the deli and spied far too many townies in their Silverados and F150s in the parking lot fresh from their late evening/early morning big-game hunting of Bambi’s mother. My brother-in-law raced by me in his charcoal Toyota Tundra doing a speed in excess of five miles per hour over the posted tortoise limit. I said a quick prayer hoping that the sheriff’s deputy I had just seen was preoccupied with his Kill Shot Bravo game app or scrolling through some of the recently divorced local talent on Tinder to notice his “speed”. The last thing he needed in his weekend was an upcoming date in front of the town judge. I’d see him later to find out if he dodged the deputy, so I didn’t bother to text him at that point.

As I passed town hall on my left, I spun my steering wheel to the right before the railroad tracks and headed down the road running parallel to the station. The “downtown” area is far from the epicenter of economic development – there’s the Chinese takeout and a natural healing something or other storefront in what looks like it could have been a general store from a hundred years ago, a stand-alone structure that does some type of high-end artisan restoration of haughty picture frames, a small unassuming bodega that I don’t think I have ever stepped foot in, our town post office, which seems to be closed for lunch anytime, I’m in need of mailing something (or checking our post office box), a fine art gallery that seems like it would be in the perfect setting if it weren’t completely overlooked by our entire bedroom community, and last but not least, my early meal destination – the cafe.

You may have asked yourself why it is caffe instead of café. I simply don’t know and haven’t mustered up enough interest to inquire as to the origins of this peculiarity. I parked my truck in the usual spot in front of the post office. While I was gathering my iPhone and personal effects and before leaving my vehicle, I saw this very smartly dressed senior-aged couple leaving the post office.

They were both dressed in that itchy, stodgy estate tweed that reminded me of some well-aged college professor or some gentry in Scotland. He held the door for her as they exited the post office and then quickly readjusted his brown newsboy cap. The timing of our intersection on the sidewalk seemed somewhat oddly cosmically prearranged. I originally wanted to overlook them as I had my objective clearly set on obtaining a grilled breakfast panini from the cafe when I overheard the highlander country woman state to her handsome husband, “He’d be perfect for the job. He’s a canny lad.”

I pretended to ignore them for a moment but my Catholic guilt and good social graces got the better of me. I turned to them, smiled, and said good morning.

The diminutive woman then asked “Foos yer doos? Can we have a craik laddie?”

Thanks to my UK-based colleagues and having recently returned from a business trip to Ireland that took me to Shannon and Cork, I knew they were asking how I was and they meant that they wished to have a chat.

The perfectly put together older gentleman then shared a brief background that they had a “clarty” bastard that had been performing the work but they had no other options at current – no one and nowhere to turn for help. This issue didn’t seem like a typical scam like those emails from Somalia or Botswana so I continued to listen to these two otherwise innocent and quite lovely little couple. While I was listening to them, I began to feel some hunger pangs and heard my stomach start to offer some color commentary to his play-by-play. I abruptly interrupted and asked what precisely was the task at hand.

Gathering himself, the gentleman looked at me and confidently said, “Laddie, it is two jobs actually, we desperately need a pimpmaker and a knocker up.”

Without hesitation, they both now continued to ramble on to each other about their recent experiences when I interrupted for a second time and asked what in all of God’s creation were they talking about. Apparently, a pimp was a bundle of firewood. The couple had a number of trees cut down on their property and thus needed a pimpmaker. For this first task, they needed a reliable person who could help bundle the wood for them and to potentially sell. I was somewhat  but knew I wasn’t qualified (or interested) in the first task at hand. I offered the name of the best landscaper in our area – my wife’s cousin Eddie. While I’m not sure his wife would embrace the idea of his potential new title, I knew he was the superman that could come to their rescue in their time of need for “pimping.”

There was still the other role of the “knocker up” that still desperately required some much needed definition and clarification. While I admit, I did blush a little when I asked about the role and responsibilities of the knocker-up, they did nothing to ease my anxiety. The woman offered a bit more, she shared that the alternative name of the role saying it was also called a knocker-upper. I shuddered to think where we were headed next down this rabbit hole. Apparently, with their advancing age, they were on several medications and some of these caused them to sleep. Their excessive daytime sleep often made them miss some of their other daily doses of medications and they were in need of knocker-upper, which I was soothed to find out was simply someone who would ensure they would wake up and in this case, help them take their prescription regimen at the required interval.

While there aren’t two cats in the yard, “our house is a very, very, very fine house” as the lyrics of Crosby, Stills & Nash profess. In the rustic oasis that are the converted meadows and horse farms stand behemoths enshrouded in beige and gray plastic. Are these domiciles an unspoken testimonial to conformity or simply a tragedy of the tragically white, Christian, Republican, largely upper middle class inhabitants and their lack of creativity? The answer to that question may require some degree of work from the analytics and polling teams at Marist or Quinnipiac. This issue will most unfortunately have to go unanswered for now. Perhaps the more timely (and much bigger) question for our family, friends and neighbors (and the occasional visitor) is the clear non-conformist to this color scheme in our neighborhood that catches their attention and threatens the comforting reality of sameness. 

Everyone, I mean everyone know this house. They know the house as people from The Bronx know the Garabedian house on Pelham Parkway – the house that draws thousands of visitors during the Christmas holiday. No, this place isn’t another “Christmas house”. 

It is bright. 

It is blue. 

At the end of the mountain road as it intersects with the county route, it sits as the fulfillment of someone’s pomposity in their pied-à-terre – yes, a bright blue house. 

It may not have been the object of such talk in a place like New Orleans or San Francisco but in our town this was an iconic incongruity in the idyllic whistle-stop. While everyone spoke about and clearly knew the house, the overwhelming majority did not know of its inhabitants. 

Who lives there? 

If you are looking at the front of this blue house from the roadway, the mailbox offers a comforting head tilt to the left. As I had learned in a class on body language and deception two decades ago, the tilting of the head sideways can be a sign of interest, which may be in what is said or happening. It can also be a flirting signal saying, “I am interested in you!”. Now, I know what you are thinking, let’s not go and start giving human characteristics to inanimate objects. I agree with your view and promise not to anthropomorphize any further. It has been said the greater the tilt, the greater the uncertainty, or the greater the intent to send this type of signal. 

Whether you are curious or uncertain (or both) about this bright blue house at this point is still largely irrelevant. It is isn’t about you sitting in judgement in your beige or gray home. The hard fact here is this dwelling draws the deliberation of the many homebodies of this town. New and lifelong inhabitants as well as the very old to the very young are a bit bewildered by the blue. 

Who lives there, anyway? 

On the left side of the overgrown path to the door is a disjointed and misplaced black wrought iron handrail that seems too short for even a small child. Where you would imagine the storybook white picket fence near the curbside on the right side of path is what appears to be some plumber’s remnants of some pipe and random fittings pieced together. It would indeed be quite “fitting” if the homeowner was growing some tomatoes and had a hope of securing the vines like Grandpa did in the asphalt jungle on Dalton Road but as a fence in a front yard it was an especial peculiarity among the overgrowth of weeds. 

The path diverges immediately from the curbside. The straight path leads to the front door and the left path to an inaccessible small porch with a broken step that is surrounded by wrought iron. 

I’ll tell you who lives there. 

I’ve seen a man on the small porch on occasion leaning on the artful white pillar that holds up the roof. He’s an older man about 80 years of age. He is of slight build, clearly riddled with arthritis, with not much white and silver hair left hair on his head. As best as I can recall his drooping eyes have always appeared somewhat watery, and he has a sad, weathered face that tells the tale of a wearisome life journey. 

The time I saw him that I remember most he had a well-worn (what was previously white, now yellowed and sweat stained) v-neck undershirt, khaki-colored shorts (that were clearly made from what was previously a pair of pants), white socks that came up to his knees (like that of University of Maryland basketball standout Walt Williams), and a pair of standard Army issue black combat tropical boots. He’s been describe in the same “uniform” every time anyone has seen him and as far as my investigative reporting has surmised. 

The very few in town that have engaged him have nicknamed and referenced him as “Crazy Joe”. I have heard others call him “Joe the Boxer” claiming he had been a Golden Gloves boxer in his youth. Some others around the town profess he was just punch drunk from too many fights while he was in military service in the South Pacific or Korea or both. 

There’s a rumor that was overheard one night at Healy’s that he was a veteran of both wars and after serving over twenty years in the military “Joe” retired with his college love to the town. As the story has been handed down, some time after losing their infant son to a rare childhood disease shortly after birth, his wife was diagnosed with inoperable primary CNS lymphoma and died within 18 months of their son. Already suffering through and reliving their deaths on a daily basis and wrestling with the flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety of post-traumatic stress disorder from his years of military service, Joe became reclusive. He only accepted infrequent visits from a retired priest who was a former military chaplain who had taken residence in the local parish house and from a member from the local VFW who delivered him some groceries, and the occasional hot meal once a week. 

One night, about four months after his wife’s burial, Joe was battling the jarring and tragic experience of her loss. It was about early evening and the sun had not fully set. His heart and mind was filled with feelings of sadness, anxiety, and he was reliving his recent past shared with the two loves of life. The guilt of not being able to prevent their death from having occurred and his deep feelings of sadness turned to rage. That rage quickly turned into action and “Crazy Joe” decided it is was time to memorialize their passing. 

You see, blue was his Annie’s favorite color. 

Bright blue, not baby blue, was the color Annie wanted for their baby boy’s nursery. 

As the legend goes (and has clearly been embellished), Joe kicked open the pantry door and jumped down the three short steps into the garage. He rustled through the cans of paint and brushes he had set aside nearly two years earlier. He brought them to the front of the house with his two-story ladder and began to slather the bright blue paint from the dormer windows in the roof structure to the base of the foundation and around the doorway of his domicile. 

It was nearly sunrise when he had completed his work and when he was done he sat down on the step of the path leading to the front door and wrote down a few words from the lyrics he remembered from a blues song he had heard – “There is no use looking or ever hoping, or ever hoping to get me back.” He taped the paper to the window of his door and finally succumbed to the mental and physical exhaustion – falling asleep on the cool bluestone path that was now speckled in bright blue paint drops.